THE MOOSE 69 



spike, and the palmation begins the third year, and for 

 a number of years the horns are larger every year. 

 Moose-antlers are measured from point to point ; the 

 value is said to depend upon the spread. The head 

 owned by the artist, the late Albert Bicrstadt, meas- 

 ured sixty-four and a quarter inches. Mr. Grant says 

 the best head he remembers from the Ottawa district 

 measured nearly six feet in extreme breadth. It is safe 

 to assume that a little short of six feet is the extreme 

 width of an eastern head.* The moose of the Rocky 

 Mountains, from Wyoming to the Alaskan boundary, 

 have relatively small antlers, f The great Alaskan 

 moose has the largest and most massive antlers. Mr. 

 Hornaday in his "Natural History":}: gives us a pic- 

 ture of the antlers of an Alaskan moose, killed on the 

 Kenai Peninsula by Dall De Weese, which have a spread 

 of sixty-eight inches. The demand for moose-heads 

 caused them to bring good prices, and the moose in 

 Alaska suffered accordingly. Mr. Hornaday sa3's: 



" Until the enactment of the national law of 1902 for 

 the preservation of wild-animal life in Alaska, the huge 

 antlers of the moose of Alaska threatened to cause the 

 annihilation of the species in Ihc territory. 'Record 

 heads' and 'record antlers' began to be sought for 

 by those who were able to buy them at high prices, 

 and very promptly moose-killing for heads and horns 

 became an established industry. The unfortunate fact 



* Mr. George Brown, of Boiestown, secured a record head in New liruns- 

 wick last fall. The spread is sixty-seven inches. — Field and Streatn. 



t Seventh Report <-f the New York State Forest, Fish, and Game Com- 

 mission. 



\ The American Natural History. 



